Comments for Fiscal Cliff Deal was a Raw Deal for Low-Income, Working-Class People at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.cepr.net Sat, 25 May 2013 12:46:09 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/fiscal-cliff-deal-was-a-raw-deal-for-low-income-working-class-people#comment-21339 I'm really tired of hearing of the "Bush Tax Cuts". These were bi-partisan. These tax cuts were passed by a Senate which had 50 Democratic Senators. In recent years, we are always being told that progressive legislation goes nowhere because 60 Senators are needed to pass legisaltion, because of the threat of a filibuster. So the Democrats could have stopped the tax cuts as easily as the Republicans have killed almost all progressive legislation. - Galen Linder Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:05:37 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/fiscal-cliff-deal-was-a-raw-deal-for-low-income-working-class-people#comment-21171 We can't resolve the economic deterioration of the US because we can't discuss the causes and details. We can't discuss the this in terms of reality because an entire generation was carefully taught to ignore the proverbial elephant in the room -- poverty. It isn't possible to stop the shrinking (eventual disappearance) of the middle class without shoring up the poor -- and you certainly can't rebuild the (once powerful) middle class while supporting policies that lock people into poverty, using them as a local Third World workforce (workfare), pulling more of the middle class into poverty. Because there has been no legitimate public discussion about American poverty in decades, an entire generation is clueless about how bad things are, and how this directly works to pull more and more people into poverty. Indeed, media that appeals to progressives of this generation make a point of safely avoiding the issue, making the public discussion all about/only about the better off, the middle class. This makes it a lost cause. Government won't address the issue as long as the public disregards it, and the public will disregard it as long as our media ignores it. - DHFabian Thu, 10 Jan 2013 03:24:04 +0100